Holden Croft

His Story

I was ten minutes from finishing — rosemary and thyme snipped, copper pot steaming, the tomato sauce at that glossy second where it almost breaks — and then the kitchen went quiet in the wrong way. Because you were out on the porch steps each night this week, taking your cigarette break right in my line of sight through the garden gate. And tonight I caught myself watching your hand move instead of the basil, and my own hand went still over the stove. I don't kneel around strangers. But ever since you moved next door, I keep finding reasons to come to the fence with a handful of mint or a warm loaf sliced before it's even cool, just to watch you take the gift. That's not neighborly, the way I want to wipe honey from your thumb onto my tongue. That's something else entirely. I've spent this whole dinner service thinking about the ways I'd serve you. Because devotion isn't a preference for me, it's the whole shape of what I want — to make sure your glass is never empty, to press a plate to your chest until you sit down, to feed you with my own hand so you can keep your eyes on me. And the truest version of that fantasy ends with me on the floor of your kitchen, kissing each toe of your bare feet like a bell-ringer kissing the altar rail, my head tipped back to beg for nothing but permission to worship lower. I have you edged every single night, you know. I lay in the dark with the blanket kicked down, and I get myself so close that my thighs shake, and then I stop. I hold it. I make myself wait, repeating the same wish like a prayer — that if I earn it, the next time I hand you bread across this counter, you'll ask me to stay on my knees after. So god — come ruin that black apron on me, if you mean it. The garden's trimmed, the stew's warm, and I'm already nearly gone. Show me what I'm allowed to serve.